The Ramsey Show - You Aren't Defined By Your Financial Mistakes

Episode Date: July 1, 2026

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Brought to you by the Every Dollar app. Start budgeting for free today. Normal is broke and common sense is weird, so we're here to help you transform your life. From the Ramsey Network and the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio, this is The Ramsey Show. I'm Dave Ramsey, George Camel. Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author

and co-host a smart money happy hour is my co-host today. The phone number is AAA-825-225. The call is free. and some say the advice is worth exactly what you pay for it. Brenna is with us in Las Vegas. Hi, Brenna, how are you? Hi, I'm good. Thank you so much for taking my call.

Sure. What's up? I have a question for you. It's in regards to whether my husband and I should be working harder, looking at debt, and how to deal with contentment and mom guilt at not being able to give my kids everything that I think they deserve. to give some back story, we're on baby step 4, 5, 6. We have two emergency funds.

We have no debt. My husband and I both work part-time. So we get to spend lots of time with our kids. We easily pay all of our bills. I feel like our budget is comfortable. We don't pinch pennies, but we're careful with our money. My son is becoming school-aged. In Las Vegas, we have, like, the worst schools in the nation.

So public schools is not a good option. the private school that all of our friends are sending their kids to that are associated with our church is like $13,000 a year for like kindergarten. And that just seems like an outrageous amount of money to send on early education. So we're looking at homeschooling. But I'm just worried that I'm not working hard enough or looking at other options in order to give my kids what they need. But at the same time, I feel like I'd work harder just to send my kids to somebody else to take care of. Wow. You have a lot of guilt on a lot of different labels of guilt. I mean, it's all over the place. I don't know if I can get tall of them.

Well, I mean, it's just choices, is what it comes down to. If you want to do the private school, you're going to work more, right? Yeah. That's your trade-off. And if not, you're going to do the homeschool. And, you know, and there's a trade-off there, too, by the way. Right. People who homeschool will tell you there are two camps, the ones that love it and the ones that viciously hate it and put their children in another school as fast as they possibly can. So all homeschooling is not for everyone. I think our children would probably be dead if they were homeschooled. I probably would have killed them.

And Brenda, if I told you your kids would end up just fine if they were homeschooled, if they went to private school, would you feel better about the choice? If you just, if you looked into the future, they were great kids regardless. Which one would you choose? I mean, personally, I had my kids for a reason. I love hanging out with them. I think I want to homeschool. That's what my heart is leaning towards. What's wrong with that?

My husband and I are leaning towards. So what must be true for you to homeschool financially? Oh, I mean, we could do it right now. Financially, we're good right now. So what's the question? Why would you not do that? I guess I just, I guess I just watch all of our friends and, like, myself. sons, friends, and, like, they're going to go to this, like, expensive private school.

And, like, I guess that's an example of just, like, I can't give my kids everything in the world that they want, right? Like, I know that's not feasible, and that wouldn't even make good kids because you've got to tell kids no in order to be good people. And I, but at the same time, like, I just worry, like, oh, what is my kid doesn't get a stuff up? The answer, though, is this. We're trying, we're not trying to raise great kids.

We're trying to raise kids that become great adults. And so what methodology does that? Is the secret sauce for them to be successful adults someday that particular shiny private school? Answer, no. Is the secret sauce for them to be wonderful, successful adults someday homeschool for 100%? No. The secret sauce is you and your husband being good parents and guiding them through whatever educational process you use. where they don't lose their dad-gum minds in the process of getting an education.

But where we get dislodged is where we think that if they don't have this car, they're not going to be successful. If they don't wear these clothes, they're not going to be successful. If they don't go to this school, they're not going to be successful. When those are not the pre-indicators of success, pre-indicators of success are what you said earlier. They learned the word no. They're grateful.

They're not entitled. They're kind and compassionate. They're people of strong integrity and strong work ethic. They know how to do hard things because mom and dad taught them how to do hard things. Because there's a whole bunch of people in America don't know how to do hard things anymore. And if you can do hard things, you immediately stand out from the crowd. And so these are the indicators of future success with your children. It's not what school they went to.

And then you want to fast forward that all the way out to what college they went to, which is the biggest joke on the planet. what college you go to has zero correlation with success. There's no piece of research that's ever shown that. And yet people still pay, you know, 25X to go to a certain college because I went to that college and as if that is the secret sauce. It's really a trophy for the parent to say, look at my reputation. Yeah, it's parent trophies. Look at my kid.

For some of your friends, they're parading these private schools in front of you. as a trophy for the parents, they're doing it for themselves, not for their kids. Right. It's like some kids in travel sports. The reason they're in travel sports is because dad has an issue. Dad never made it pro, so his kid has to. If you don't think he has an issue, just watch how he treats the umpire. You know, I mean, this is all there, right?

It's all the same thing. So, yeah, that's where it comes down to is just my overall rant, or whatever there. It's a really cool question. I love your question, by the way. My reaction to it, though, is to major in the things that actually do cause success and discard the things that don't that other people count on. Okay.

And then that helps me with my contentment. That's awesome. You know, take it over into another bucket and say, okay, does buying a really nice car cause success? Absolutely not. But a whole bunch of people buy the car to appear successful, to appear that there's something, they're not. To impress someone at a stoplight, they'll never meet and they have a $1,200 car payment. Right? And I've done that.

I did that when I was 23. I bought a jaguar for other people to look at. Not because I wanted a jaguar, because I was a shallow little turd. And that's, you know, and that's, you know, you see what I'm saying? And that's the wrong measure of success. It'll lead you down the wrong path. Giving a 16-year-old a Range Rover doesn't mean you gave them. everything. You just created a real expensive disaster that's waiting to happen. And it happens.

People, I see people driving teenagers driving brand new SUVs because the parents said, I want to give them everything. They deserve it. They've worked so hard. Well, and the one, I remember when Rachel saved up, she saved up like $8,000 and we matched. We had 401 day for your first car. And she got a $16,000 Beamer used beam. Oh, nice. You know, back then was a really nice car. Yeah. Now it's not a bad car.

And, but, you know, and, you know, twit around the corner buys the same BMW brand new. Ooh, to flex? For a 16-year-old, I guess, I don't know flex or not. $523 car payment back then. Oh, man. And that was like to be like having a $1,500 car payment now, right? Might still be paying it on. But it's total flex, and I'm like, and now where is that kid today lost as a ball in tall weeks?

You know, just can't, she just lost. That kid today hadn't got a chance. Hey guys, it's Rachel Cruz. When it comes to life insurance, most people fall into one of two camps, the ones who make a plan to protect their family, and the ones who hope everything will just work out. But hope isn't a financial plan. When you get married or have kids, your money decisions aren't. just about you anymore. Your income helps keep the lights on, pay the mortgage, and put food on the

table. And if something happens to you, will your family have protection or uncertainty? Well, at Ramsey, we recommend term life insurance that 10 to 12 times your income with a 15 to 20 year term for the years that your kids are at home and your mortgage is still being paid off. That's why Winston and I have our term life coverage through Xander Insurance. They're an independent broker who works for you, shopping all the top companies to find the most competitive prices on coverage you need. Get instant quotes online in just minutes at zander.com or call 800 356-4282 to get your family protected with term life insurance. That's zander.com or 800356-4282. That's such a good subject. Contentment for children and adults and mom guilt and dealing with all that.

So you don't have mom guilt or dad guilt if you understand, or to the extent you understand, I guess none of us do this perfectly, but to the extent you understand what causes children to be, to develop into successful adults. And it turns out it is not anything to do with the school they go to. Very little. it's not anything to do with the possessions that they have. It's not even the number of hours that Daddy is home, as if they're going to lose their ability to be nurtured because Daddy works a job.

You know, we've got this nurturing movement going on now. And so, yes, we do want children to be safe. we want them to be protected. But, you know, some of the best generations of adults have come from children who endured hardship. Not horrible things. They were not hungry, hopefully. They were not whatever. But they, you know, you think about your grandparents or for some of you, your great-grandparents or great-great-grandparents that were children in the Great Depression.

And how did they turn out? Well, that was my grandpa. And he turned into a, well, he was actually a young adult in the Great Depression. But, you know, so, you know, some people were devastated during that time, obviously, but the hard times did not keep the person from turning out. It turned out they learned how to do hard things. That's resilience. That's some grit.

Create resilience and grit. And then you could, because you're going, no matter what car you give them in private school, you put them in and no matter how much of a bubble you put them in to where they're not, you know, they're not hungry and they're not in a crime situation where they're being a victim of crime or those kinds of things. If you put them in a perfect bubble and they don't learn how to deal with tough things when they come, then they're going to have really, really hard time. They're going to be an anxiety-filled adult because they don't know how to deal with crap. You didn't give them the tools.

You can give them a shovel when the manure comes, you know. And so, you know, but that's an interesting discussion. And Rachel and I wrote a lot about that in the book that we did together, Smart Money, Smart Kids. One of the things that we've answered for parents a whole lot over the years is how do you raise children in this world that are not entitled. And it starts with, there's a three-step process. It starts with gratitude.

And so you become great, teach a child gratitude, teach them grateful. and with a little kid, it sounds like manners. Thank you, mom, for dinner. That's gratitude, but it sounds like manners, good manners. Thank you, mom, for dinner. Thank you, dad, for, you know, the help with my homework. That's gratitude, right? And gratitude then shows you humility.

Because in order to have gratitude, there has to be some humility. It has to be it's not all about you. Because if I'm entitled to dinner, then I can just be mad at mom and have a fit if I don't like the broccoli. I don't like whatever, right? But see, we're not allowed to do that at our house, and our children are not allowed to do that. You might not like the broccoli, but you don't get to disrespect the mother that created it because I'll take you out and create another one looks just like you. You're going to do that. We're not going to disrespect the mom.

That's not an option, right? That's old school parenting, but that's how it work. And so you get to understand the world doesn't revolve around your little butt. Your little butt is just one more little butt, you know? And so it doesn't revolve around you. And so if it doesn't revolve around you, then you would be grateful. And then when you're grateful, that sets you up for the ability to be content. But contentment does not exist in a bubble all by itself over here and just land on someone like a butterfly on your shoulder.

Oh, now I'm peaceful and content. You become content because you realize it's not all about you. And I say, thank you, Lord, for the blessings in my life, Father. Thank you. You blessed me. This is a prayer we say around the Ramsey's all the time. You blessed us beyond our wildest imaginations. Our mind is blown by you, Father.

Thank you for what you poured on to us. That's gratitude. But it comes from, I didn't do this by myself. Obviously, I know my Heavenly Father has poured out upon me, something that I couldn't have done by myself. And yes, I worked hard, but I couldn't have done it by myself. And so then out of that, you set yourself in a spiritual position to be content. And when you can teach children that in this culture, they have a superpower.

Then they're totally good to not upgrade that car with a payment. They go, I'm good. My car works. It's fine. Yeah. And they don't say stupid stuff. Like, I work so hard, I deserve. You don't deserve any.

shut up. When you have the money to pay for it, that's when you deserve it. Until then, you're a whiner. Call the wambulance, right? I mean, whey, I work so hard. Oh, shut up. We all work hard. Wee. I don't meet anybody. Says, you know, I don't work very hard and I deserve it. Nobody says that. Of course you work hard. Shut up. Now, go make some deadgum money. Live on less than you make, get yourself out of debt and save up and pay for something and then you can say, I deserve it. But until then, I don't deserve $1,200 car payments. That's just dumb butt.

You don't say that. Those are kids who grew up into adults but never actually became adults. Yeah, it's kind of the reverse. They're children that became children. They became grown children. That's frightening. Which is kind of an oxymoron if you think about it. And you don't want your kid to marry that person, let alone be them.

Oh, yeah, yeah. You teach your children to identify those people and stay away from them. Because otherwise they will make your grandchildren and now you've got a real mess. Yeah, that's exactly right. Then you've got entitled grandchildren. Can you imagine, entitled grandchildren? Not in the Ramsey house. Well, I mean.

Dave's not putting up with that. Well, I love my grandbabies. I mean, grandbabies are awesome. You can spoil them. If I don't know how great grandbabies are going to be, I'd have been nicer to their parents. But, you know, but they're, but, you know, Papa Dave, we don't, we don't do that at Papa Dave's house. Papa Dave's house is how we do things. There's rules.

There's like, you know, we say thank you, Jesus, and thank you, Mimi. We are grateful at Papa Dave's house because we know where all good things come from, Jesus and Mimi. That's right. Dave, just lucky to be in the room. I'm just lucky to be around and get to observe this thing happen. You're a turtle on the fence post. But isn't that fun? I mean, it's the, I loved her question.

That's why I wanted to spend a minute. Because the intentions were great. The motives was great. And it was not an insincere question. And it took me to a place I didn't think I would go to this quickly in today's show. But, you know, so many of the things that we chase that we call happiness or we call entitled or we call deserve are the wrong things to. get us to the destination we were trying to get there. It turns out the Range Rover

won't take you there. Well, it's hard because the character stuff, that's invisible. And as a parent and kid, you just want to see the visible thing. The nice car, the private school, look at what they have. She said it. Well, I look around at all my friends. Well, there's the problem. Stop looking around.

Because it'll lead you to that discontentment. Get off of Facebook and Instagram. Get out of the carpool line. No one puts the crap in the, their life on Facebook or Instagram. They only put the highlight reel. It's like, oh, Rachel used to do that thing. It's like no one puts on there the, you know, the 1993 Honda hashtag blessed.

You know, nobody does that. They always put, right, the new thing on there. This garb, you know, the thing I can't afford. Shiny new car with a bow on it. Look what my husband got me, Alexis with a red bow. You know, whatever. It doesn't get as many likes on Instagram. Yeah.

And if that's what you're chasing. No one puts, they don't put, you know, your child having a meltdown, three years old on the cereal island. Everyone who's ever had a kid had one that just lost their mind in the grocery store at least once. It's like, they don't, you know, we ought to post that stuff. I'm willing to. I've got a three-year-old and a one-year-old. That's a Tuesday in my house.

Well, you shouldn't do that because then they'll have a digital tattoo the rest of their life. Oh, okay. Somebody will pull that up when they're running for Congress. If you run a business, you already know this. bad information leads to bad decisions. And right now, AI is everywhere. But AI is only as good as the data behind it. The best AI is built on the best data. That's why I recommend NetSuite. NetSuite is the number one AI cloud ERP and more than 43,000 businesses run on it, including us here at Ramsey Solutions. Their AI isn't bolted on, it's built in, and it connects everything that runs your business, accounting, inventory, customer data all in one place.

Because when your numbers are connected, AI actually works like it's supposed to. NetSuite's AI helps flag cash flow problems, spot inventory issues, close your books faster, and cut down on manual reporting. If your revenue is at least seven figures, go to NetSuite.com. slash Ramsey for a free product tour. That's netsuite.com slash Ramsey. Todd is with us. Todd's in Topeka, Kansas. Hey, Todd, how are you? Good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? We agree that debt is probably not a good thing. What is your thoughts on programs that have interest-free, like for tractors, cars, something like that.

The manufacturer will have an interest-free program, and you can make, like, in my case, it would be on a tractor, and they have all sorts of different programs that kind of fit what would work for you. But I like the thought of using other people's money for free. Well, I don't know, I know the car manufacturing side of it. I don't know the tractor side of it, but I suspect it's similar. Okay. In the car world, the only way you get an interest-free loan on a brand new car, zero interest, is you pay sticker price, which I don't know why anyone would pay sticker price, because I'm going to buy a new car.

I'm going to buy it for a lot less than sticker, like a lot less than sticker. And so the difference in what I would pay for it and what you would pay for it if you took the interest-free sticker price loan is called interest. Yeah. You know, they got their money. They just didn't call it that, you know. And I suspect John Deere or Caterpillar or whoever is probably doing the same thing on the tractor side with combines or whatever. or whatever else with the, you know, those are huge ticket items.

And I suspect they're there. Let me just tell you, there's no instance that you can loan someone money for free unless you're making up what would have been the interest somewhere else. Someone's paying interest on the borrowed money somewhere. And so it's built into something somewhere. You know, in other words, or they're just having. taking a little less profit and calling it an interest-free loan, right? Because banks don't loan money interest-free.

And so organizations don't lend money interest-free, and if they do, it means they're making the equivalent of interest somewhere else, or they're going to go out of business, agreed? Yes. There's no free lunch. Normally, not normally. So I was going to pay cash. for this machine and the guy gave me the price.

It was $89,000. Okay. And then I was reading something and I saw that Cabota had a interest-free program. So I called the dealer and the guy, the salesman, and asked him. And he said, yes. So, and the price was still $89,000. And then he said there's all sorts of programs if you'd like to put down what you'd like to put down, whether it be a monthly, yearly, yearly payment, what have you. So that made me

think. Well, what I want then is a discount for cash. Now I don't like my $89,000 price. If I'm in your shoes. That's the way I would go at this. I'm not going to borrow the money, and the reason is they're going to make the money somewhere. And then number one, number two, as I've studied wealthy people, I've never met a single millionaire that said, you know, the way I became millionaire was I parlayed all these nothing down zero percent interest things on my cabota and that's how I became a millionaire. Never have I met a millionaire that said they did that. Millionaires just don't play with this stuff, but it's kind of a mind game that it's, you know, if you like math like you do and I do, to get into it. But George, have you run into this with the

tractor world at all? Not in the tractor world specifically, but the 0% game is everywhere now. And number one, you're right. The sticker price is going to be higher and there's no negotiating. So you're not going to get any cash discount. That's what you're trading off here. Number two, they're hoping and knowing most people won't pay it off in that 0% promotional period, which then triggers all of the interest. So he might be the exception of the rule because he has the cash, but it's still adding risk and he's still getting a worse deal by going for this. And they get kickbacks. Anytime they work with a lender, they're getting a kickback.

Yeah. You know, it doesn't occur to me to borrow money under any circumstances. So because I've not found that to be how people become successful financially. Yeah. And so, you know, I've got a cabota skidsteer at my farm. It's one of my favorite toys. We put a bush hog on the front of it, and I go over there in bushhog and talk about therapy. That's a great hobby.

It's kind of like pressure washing therapy. It's the same thing. And it's better than golf. It's really good. I'm knocked down and cut up and chew up some stuff with that thing. And I never thought a thing about doing anything except paying cash for that one. I bought it. Yeah.

Just a toy. Well, that's the other part of this we're not talking about, is this sort of slippery slope mentality of, well, I did the 0% over here. Why not do it on the furniture and on the appliance and on my personal car? Because I know I'm smart enough to pay it off. I have the cash. It's a lot of calories to burn to keep up with all of it. And so, but no, I, you know.

I want him to test it. Call us back with your cash discount. It won't cause you to be wealthy. The interest on $89,000 or whatever, that's what the price was. Yeah. My next question is, what do they cost used? Could you buy one slightly used at 70? I think Todd can probably afford this. He's just doing mental gymnastics. I think he can buy whatever he wants. But he doesn't want to part with his cash. No, he was he was okay with it until the dealer said you can get zero percent. And then he kind of started doing mental. backflips. I like to hang on to it at that point. I kind of understand how you can get there, but no, I would not do it. I'm not going into debt. I don't do it. I would not tell you to do it. I've not met wealthy people that use this as a method of building wealth. And so while it sounds like I'm using other people's money for free, you're somewhere in there. Somebody's not. It doesn't

work if you do. All right, Susan's with us in Portland, Oregon. Hi, Susan. How are you? Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? I'm a 62-year-old divorcee. I have zero debt. I don't own a home, but my car is paid for. And I'm living with my partner who does not charge me rent. I have approximately $1.5 million in retirement funds. And my question is, what is a good amount that I could take out monthly and still have enough to live on?

Because my biggest fear is running out of money. and I live very frugly now. I live on $2,000 a month. And I just, I think I need just guidance in what's a sake of honor. Let's just do some basic math, okay? What are, what's your $1.5 million invested in? Traditional IRAs, Roth IRAs. I mean, what's the investment in good mutual funds, growth, growth stock mutual funds?

Yes. Okay, so you think the portfolio is averaging what the market has averaged around 11,000? percent, 12 percent? Yes. Okay. And so if your 1.5 is going up by, let's just use some, let's pretend, if it's going up by 12 percent a year and you pulled off 8 percent, that means it would still go up by 4 percent a year.

Does that make sense? Yes. And so 8 percent of a million and a half is $120,000 a year? Whoa. $10,000 a month? Yeah. I could use. that. I think you're okay. You said you spend two grand a month? Yeah. Yeah, we're a ways away.

You could upgrade your life. So, and here's the idea. Here's the thing. If we, if we make 12 and we pull off eight, we never touch the 1.5 and it grows by four a year. You never even touch the principal, much less run out of money. Yeah, that's where I get hung up on because I see it as a finite amount. And I, it's not, it's not finite if you never touch. It's not. It's perpetual. If you cash it out and put it in a checking account, it's infinite. It's mathematically infinite if you don't touch it.

Okay. And what about the common 4% rule? It comes out that it would be about 60,000 gross. What about that? What the hell? Common, common, common, what kind of common? I mean, why do we want to be common? I don't want to be common anything.

What's funny is... You're reading the internet. The guy who came up with that, came out and said, that was way too conservative. It's probably more like five and a half for it. five and a half for me now. Who knows what it is? If the inflation rate's four and you pull off eight and you leave four in there, there's a common rule.

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like I did, a bunch of nerds in a pile, often become Pharisees. And they get caught up in the world of hypotheticals to where they can't even use any common sense anymore because we get paralysis of the analysis because we're so good at math. those of us that do that world. George is studying CFP right now, and you've observed this. I call them certified financial Pharisees. And so it's the certified financial planners, but CFPs. But not all of them are, but some can get caught up in that.

If you had to generalize the community. And then the dumb butts write articles on the Internet. And they write stuff like the common rule, or the common rule of 4% withdrawal rate. But here's the trick, folks. You need to learn to do your own math because these people spend so much time over analyzing this stuff that there's nothing left when they finish. And their set of assumptions most of the time is so asinine that it doesn't apply to the real world. So just learn to do your own math. So here's the rule.

Here's a, here's some basic things you can do math with, all right? The inflation rate has averaged for the last 84 years, the consumer price index, the CPI, is what we measure inflation with, 4.2%. That means on average your money has lost its purchasing power 4% a year. Now, Biden and COVID, we had some 9% and 10%. Carter, we had some 10 and 12 and 14%. And gas lines in the 70s if you're old. But still, the average over 80 plus years is about 4%. And so if you're going to project out from age 60 to age 100, your retirement years, then 4%'s probably pretty good.

There might be some years it's higher. There might be some years that's lower. The average, which is the middle, hello, it's not the median, but it's the average, is still 4%. So if you through that, if you're making 12 on your money and you leave four in there, your money grows by as much as it lost in purchasing power you broke even. That's pretty simple, right? So if you leave, let your money grow by 4%, you're not only not deteriorating your nest egg. The goose is just fine, and he's still laying some small golden eggs. but we're taking eight of the 12.

You're more, that'll run in perpetuation forever. Do your own math. But some goober said, well, you need to do inflation adjust. I just did. We need to do, we need to adjust for this and that, and we need to have a conservative number, and we need to use real dollars, and we need to use CGR, and we need, and would you shut up and join us over here in the real world? Because if you draw 4% and you leave 8% in there, this money's going to,

going to double in about seven years. And this poor woman has worked her whole life to have a million and a half dollars. She's a freaking millionaire. She's scared to live. And she's scared to live because she read your stupid but common law goal, whatever the garbage line was, for 4% withdrawal rates. And I've seen 4% withdrawal rates for 40 years that I've been on the year doing this. That study was done in 1994. That's the crazy part. And here's what's wild. When you actually look into the study, it has a lot of assumptions. It was a low market returns, high inflation, assuming your portfolio had a whole lot of bonds in it. Assuming your portfolio sucked. Exactly. And to your point, Dave, I read an article from a highly respected CFP that everyone in

the community would say, this guy knows what he's talking about. Here's what he found. Over two-thirds of the time, the 4% rule leaves retirees finishing their 30-year horizon with more than double their starting principle. And that's if they suck at investing. That's pretty wild to think. Put it in a decent mutual fund instead of a bunch of stupid bonds like some of you CFPs tell them to do. You know, I'm 65. You know how many bonds I own? Precisely zero. Which upsets the CFP community to no end because don't you understand asset allocation?

Yeah, I understand how dumb the theory is and I'm not going to follow it because if there's anything I am, it's defiant. I'm 100% defiant of stupidity. so you know and I'm not wearing a mask either so shut up I mean I'm just defiant right he likes to go against the grain guys yeah well guess what it's worked out really good for me so here's the thing if you if you if you if you if you make 12 because you've got good growth stock mutual funds and you can get average market returns the s&P the standard and poor 500 is average 11.8 so if you make 12 on your money and you don't and you pull off only four that leaves you eight, that means your money's still going to double every 10 years, not 30 years, whoever

did the study. The second study you referenced, okay? So that means her million and a half, she's 60 years old, 62 years old, at 72 she's going to have $3 million and have lived on 4% because she was scared by your stupid but analysis on the internet. See, this makes me livid when you put out bad information and the These people work their whole lives, and now you've still got them on beans and rice, because you overanalyze everything in your ferocytical mindset.

You're killing me out there. And then Dave Ramsey makes people poor. No, Dave Ramsey made them rich, so they don't have to worry about people like you. That's what, oh, God, the 4% rule. Did I get hyped up on that? But anyway. Is blood pressure? If you had one of these watches on, it'd be like, hey, you need to take a walk.

Well, because these people have. worked so hard. It's hope stealing. And when they're going, well, you need more. Nope, you need more. You need at least $7 million and a half dollars and it's still not enough. It's still not enough. It's like Zillow came out in the article last week. You know, 243 cities. It takes a million dollars to buy a starter home. And they put out that as the clickbait headline when Zillow's own data says that the typical starter home is $199,000. But they managed to find to a $1,000. They cherry-picked the highest cost of living areas.

That have a million-dollar starter home. Well, guess what? You don't need to be living in those stupid cities if you're buying your first house and you're a broke newlywed. So you can't live in Manhattan. It's too expensive. But Zillow puts out there as if the first-time home, they're stealing everybody's hope,

first-time homebuyers are all out of the market because 242 cities have a million-dollar starting. See, that's just a freaking lie is what that is for clickbait. and gets people fired up when the average starter home right now in America, this moment, according to freaking Zillow, is $199,000. This is how dumb these people are. Well, they cherry-picked it. Now they're going, hey, check out our site for affordable homes today. Exactly. And so this is why you can't trust people like Zello because they're going to clickbait you into believing something that's not true according to their own data.

And the 4% withdrawal rate is not true according to Mark. marketplace data that has been around if you can do basic sixth grade math. So if you're invested in good mutual funds, you can withdraw 6 to 8% and never touch your principal. David. And leave 100% of your nest egg to your kids. And so if you got a million dollars, that's $60,000 to $80,000 a year and never touch the principle it will grow. It's crazy. This CFP, which again, it's one of the CFPs.

He even said at the end of this. Using linear return projections, he found a retiree could safely withdraw roughly 6.6%. That's coming from a respected CFP. So to say that you can't do 6% you're going to run out of money is hogwash. 8% for that matter. You're not still going to run out of money. So 4% is way too conservative. You'll end up, hey, you'll have a good problem.

You'll leave a whole lot of money. But in the meantime, you didn't live your life. Yeah. So I've got a buddy that's, he's my age, he's 65. He's got 3,000 bottles of wine in his cellar. There's no posse boy he's going to drink it all. It's the same thing. He's never going to get through that wine.

He's not going to make it. He's not going to make it. He's going to have to sell off some of it or leave it to his kids. His kids would be like, well, what do we do with this? Same thing. It's impossible to destroy a collection of that size in your lifetime. It's the same exact scenario. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp.

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Go to BetterHelp.com slash Ramsey to get 10% off. That's BetterHelp, help.com slash Ramsey. Welcome back to the Ramsey show in the Fair Winds Credit Union studio. Phillip is in Charlotte, North Carolina. Hey, Phillip, what's up? Hi, thank you for taking my call, Dave. I appreciate y'all. Sure.

Taking the time to put me on there. So I have found myself at a crossroads in the last week or so, and I started down the path of trying to find debt consolidation, stuff like that. And within the last four or five days, I've actually run a question and stuff and really, really... I'm sorry, for the last four or five days, what? You broke up?

I've found y'all's YouTube and stuff and really been paying attention to that. Oh, cool. Listen to what you had to say about the debt and everything. I just kind of wanted to put myself out there and get your opinion on where I need to go. I did start the baby step that you were talking about. I've got the $1,000 put back away now. Good. But with the debt consolidation, I've really realized how out of control.

My un-consolidated debt has been. I've got 16 credit card accounts. Pretty much all of them are maxed out, more or less, or on the close side of things. A few of them are in collections, and I actually got a lawsuit not too long ago that did not go through. The court did not find them that company's favor,

but the attorney has been reaching out wanting to settle. So we're trying to tackle this a debt and get back on track entirely. I want to see what you all. The lawsuit was on a credit card that was unpaid? Yes. Okay. Okay, good.

And how much total credit card debt on the 16 credit cards? Uh, 83,172. Okay. All right. We have a sponsor that I want you to talk to called Guardian litigation. And what they do is they, they are not debt consolidators, but what they do, they're attorneys, and they go and set up a plan with each of them. So it works a lot like debt consolidation, but it's not debt consolidation, and it's a law firm. So you've got representation built in. And they do a really good job on situations like yours.

Now, if you got $8,000, it's not worth messing with. We'll figure it out. But you've got $80,000 on 16 accounts. And this is really what they specialize in. Yeah. And that website for you is guardian lit.com slash Ramsey, Philip. So at the end of this call, jump on there. And they can at least help with that side of it. What's your household income? So me and my wife together, we have about, so me, myself, yearly is about $58,000. She's about $41,000 after taxes. We have not had our bank accounts together.

We've had family account and separate accounts. So that we're actually in the process of merging everything together. Wow. Good for you. Well, you're starting to do some stuff. I'm proud of you. Good. Okay.

Now, how much other debt do you have other? than the $83,000 on the credit cards? So we have her car payment, which is she's taking care of that, no issues. We have a boat. No, no, no, no. How much do you owe on her car? I think she has about $14,000. Okay.

We, you're married to her. We have $14,000 on her car. Okay, and your boat? $19,000. It is up for sale. Currently got leads on it, looking at it this week. Good. What kind of boat?

It's the Carolina Skiff. Okay, good. Good, good. That boat will sell. Okay. Good. I also got equipment. My truck is paid for. What's your truck worth? I put it up. That I'm afraid of. I actually put it as a package hoping to sell everything in the equipment in one deal and kind of close out a lot of this debt. But I'm afraid that the truck is probably going to be in the $6,000 to $7,000 range. And I've got $20,000 of credit card debt in the truck, which repairs over the last year and a half.

Yeah, but you don't have anything. You don't have a lien against it right now of any. kind. Not that I'm aware of. Okay. And the equipment is what? Skid steer, trailer, attachments. I've listed everything in the $50,000 range, and definitely we'll be taking a lot less than that. Is that all used for work or just your hobby stuff? So I used to own a company, sold it a few years back, done really well. All property, which is another thing I have, that's an asset that I've got up, been talking to people about selling it to clear it. What do you owe on the property? nothing is paid for.

Oh, what's it worth? I bought it outright about six years ago. What's it worth? I had an offer, come through the mail the other day at $60,000. I felt like the property's worked more than that. What do you think it's worth? I spoke to. I feel like it's worth at least 80 with the cabin and stuff.

It's a family property. What is mentally messing with me right now is I had it secure for my children, my sons, my father, family. It's a recreation property, and it's really kind of messed with me every the last few days of realizing I've got to liquidate. That's why the equipment, the boat, other assets that I've just previously bought over the last couple of years are up for sale trying to bring the cash flow in to clear it to keep the land. The guy I talked to said he made a mistake on the offer.

And then once we talk more, he's like, oh, it's more than what I realized it was. We have a cabin, you have a pond, and all that stuff. And he hasn't got back with me. That's kind of my last resort. But that would clear out 100% of everything. The equipment will clear out 90%. How much acre is that? A large debt.

15 and a half. So what are you hunting on it or what? We do. It's a hunting property. We don't get to go to it as much. Pretty much yearly we get there one week and then every couple weekends with fuel and stuff and can afford to pay my bills,

can't afford to really go up there and maintain it. That's what the equipment was for. I was maintaining that property, do a little side job here and there and stuff like that. Okay. Yeah, you got out of all. your skis is what happened. Absolutely.

All right. Well, here's the thing. You're not defined on, lots of people hunt deer with permission on other people's property. Most people hunt deer on other people's property with permission, not their own hunting property. So I'm with you that we try to dump everything else and keep this and keep it clear. That's fine. but your family heritage and legacy is not going to be ruined by not owning that 15 acres for deer hunting. It's just not. You've got other things you can do, other ways you can do that.

And you'll have a lot more money and a lot more freedom. But yeah, you just stacked up a bunch of stuff is what you did. Got yourself in a pinch. Well, the best legacy to leave is you becoming debt-free, you building wealth for your own family. and I mean you still got a lot of time to do that. And so I like keeping this as a last resort. He's got kind of a get out of jail free card by selling this land if he has to. But it sounds like he's doing the work to sell as much as he can and then use his future income to cash flow the remainder. And he could be out of this thing much sooner than a normal caller. Yeah.

Yeah. Because I'm looking at least $120,000. What I'm going to look at is $83,000 in credit card debt and say that's the equivalent of the land. how long have I got to stay in that in order to keep the land? Because in a very real sense, you're just paying that off to keep the land. Yeah, it's kind of like a really expensive mortgage. Yeah, it's really expensive. At 25% APR.

Yeah, I'm with you, though. I agree. And, Philip, what I love most about your stance on everything was that you've already started taking action. The boats up for sale, the skid steers up for sale. I have to sell my truck, too, with it. The, you know, we're looking at the offer on the land. We're combining our accounts. We've already got the $1,000 set aside.

So you're already making moves. You're going to be okay. You're going to work your way through this. You're not going to lose it because you're a man of action. Yeah, the willingness to sacrifice is the key determining factor for him. Yep, exactly. And then if you get down to it and the smoke clears, you still need to sell the land. Sell it.

You can dare hunt somewhere else. As a dad of young kids, I'm starting to think a lot more about the world they're growing up in and how I'll help them make sense of it as they get older. And that's why I like World Watch, a video news service for preteens and teens. Because one thing I know for sure, if you don't teach your kids how to understand the world, somebody else will. And these days, that could be TikTok, YouTube, Instagram influencers, or whoever happens to show up in their social media feed. World Watches 10-minute videos help young people understand what's happening in the world through a Christian worldview, without all the outrage, negativity, and noise that is everywhere these days.

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That's worldwatch.com slash Ramsey. Our every dollar app has its own fan base now. This app allows me to keep my budgeting goals organized. I love the projection on when will be debt-free and my estimated net worth. It gives you something to work towards and gives you a light at the end of the tunnel. Hey, that's awesome. Hey, if you start every dollar for free, not only will you have the world's best budgeting app on your side, but you're going to have Ramsey in your ear.

We're going to be teaching you the same stuff George and I would teach you as you go through the app. It's a personalized plan. We're going to walk you through the baby steps, the fastest way out of debt, the fastest way into wealth, and it's free. Go to every dollar in the app store or Google Play. Isaac is in Salt Lake City. Hi, Isaac. How are you? I'm doing well.

Thank you for taking my call and forgive my nervousness. It's okay. How can we help? I am recently divorced, and while I know what I need to pay legally, according to the decree for alimony and child support, I don't know if it feels right morally, especially at its end in 2009. Okay. You feel like you should pay more?

Yes. Oh, okay. The reason I say this, right now, alimony and child support. support together is $2,900 a month. But I am fearful that when it ends in October of 2009, then in this economy, she'll be left destitute or high and dry in that I wouldn't be like, does that make sense? I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah.

That's unusually compassionate toward the X. What do you make? $106,000 a year, but just yesterday I accepted an offer for 120, which I'm excited about. Very nice. Good for you. Good new chapter, clean chapter in your life. And $2,900 a month for three years, right? Yes, it started partway through last year, but it's going to go until October, 2009. Okay. And how old is she, and what is her career? I know that she was a manager for a mold company a while back, but I don't know if she's working at all right now. She's just focused on raising the kids and homeschooling them and things like that.

She is 37. I'm 36. How old are the kids? The youngest is two years old, and the oldest is six years old. Okay. So the 2,900 is going to be largely child support. isn't it? Not in Utah. I was told that the alimony portion is only $259 of it,

and then that the remainder is child support. Okay. I don't know what I'm talking about except from years of experience dealing with this. And because I don't know anything about Utah law and I'm not a divorce specialist, but typically three children when you make $100,000 a year, is not going to be 900 bucks a month.

You might have those two numbers flipped. I might be wrong, but I'm guessing. But in most, and I'll say in most states, you would at least have those two numbers flipped. Did you say you have two kids? Three children. Three, two, six, and what was the other age? Right in the middle, three years old.

Okay. So three years from now, you've got a five, six, and nine-year-old, and they'll be in school, and she'll go back to work full-time. Is that the plan? I think that she would want, and I wouldn't hate for them to continue to be homeschooled, but my goal is if I can be debt-free by 2009, when all of this ends takes place, then they will stay with me half the time. And I'm just trying to get to a point that I can eventually move into a place that they have room to live in as well. So that's my motivation to become debt-free. I'm curious what happened to your marriage. We were married for six years. The best way I can describe it without going into a lot of detail is I didn't feel needed or wanted.

She bought a house in 2020, and I didn't know it until she told me afterwards. I didn't feel like we made decisions together, and I couldn't – I gave the best I could, but I just couldn't keep going. Okay. All right. And yet you're talking to me about keeping going. I guess so. Yeah. So here's an opinion of a guy, not an attorney.

I don't know what I'm talking about as an attorney, and not even a financial opinion. I think this lady's going to have to have a career. She's now a single mom with three kids and she gets child support. And she's probably not going to be at home on your dole. You're not going to want to take care of her for the next 20 years. So she can sit at home and homeschool. That's not a realistic scenario. If you want to do that, it would be highly unusual to the point I would call it weird.

And I'm not sure it's good. And I'm not sure it's good. the very reason you left there, you need to leave there. And then she needs to go on and make her, she likes making decisions by herself, so now she gets to. And so, you know, I would not pay somebody $3,000 a month so they could sit at home and homeschool for 20 years, you know, or whatever it is, 18 years for a two-year-old. I mean, I'm not, no, I would not, I don't think that's, that would be unusual. I would make other arrangements for the children. I'd do other stuff, but I'm not going to just support her and her have no...

It's not good for her to have no life. And that's a single person, a divorced woman, to have zero career and be homeschooling the kids and living off of the X. That's not dignity. It's not good for her. She needs to become a person of a standalone entity. and have some independence. At that point, she's codependent on an ex. Exactly.

And I don't want my ex-husband. I mean, would you want your little sister's ex-husband supporting her? Who could pull the rug out at any time. Yeah. No, I don't want that. I don't want that for the ex. I don't want that for the kids. I don't want to model that for the children as some kind of a, you know,

well, the marriage didn't work out, but we went ahead and paid you. No, no, I don't. No, no. You can do it if you want. It's your money, but that's my opinion. And you'll always get that when you call here because I'm an expert on my opinion. And I also would check your numbers because I think your numbers are inverted. I think it's $2,000 a month in child support and $900 a month in alimony.

I don't think you got away. Maybe there's something different in Utah. I don't know. All right. That brings us to Lucy in Chicago. Hey, Lucy, what's up? Hi, Dave. How are you? Good. How are you doing?

Good. Better than I deserve. Go ahead. I'm currently in baby stuff too. I'm going to play off my dad. But my question is more regarding term life insurance. During COVID, I added my aunt as an authorized signer on my credit card. She was going through a hard time. And I also co-signed for her apartment. she still has.

She racked up about $18,000 in credit card on my card. And I wanted to know if getting term life insurance in case she may, you know, pass before she can pay off the debt. Oh, for sure she's going to pass before she pays off the debt, because she's never going to pay off the debt. Yeah. She hadn't paid it off yet. I mean, COVID six years ago.

Yeah. So, I mean, we're not going to sit around and wait on her. What's your income? Well, I make about $85,000 a year. And how much debt do you have, not counting this $18,000 in debt that's yours? So I had about $53,000. Recently, I've been listening to you. So I've sold some stocks that I had in an ESP plan.

And I brought my debt down to about $1,000. 20, about 20,000. Good. Okay, well, you got 18,000 more in credit card debt. I would add to that list. And take her off that credit card immediately. And cut the credit card off. Turn it off immediately.

Cancel the card. No more charges on it allowed by anybody, you or her. And then when the lease comes up for renewal, I'm not going to stay on it as a co-sunter. So time for her to get on her own. It's been six freaking years. Okay, guys, let me ask you something. What would it take for you to switch your bank?

because if you're still earning next to nothing on your savings, you need to check out Fairwin's credit union. And I know what you're thinking. It might sound like a hassle. Moving your direct deposit, updating bills, getting a new debit card, feels like a lot. But here's what most people don't realize. Staying where you are could be costing you hundreds of dollars every year. Y'all, the average savings account pays less than half a percent. So let's say, for example, you've got $20,000 saved. You might earn around $70 a year. But with a fair, Wend's high-yield savings account, earning 3% APY or more, that same money could earn you over $600.

And that's real money that you can use towards the baby steps. So don't let temporary comfort keep you stuck. Check out the smart bundle from Fairwind Credit Union. You get a high-yield savings account, a no-feet checking account, and the Ramsey B-Weird DeVeedCard debit card. Go to fairwins.org-slash-Ramsey to learn more and make the switch today. That's fairwinds.org slash Ramsey, insured by the NCUA. Well, we wish we could get to every call and every question here on the show.

If you've got a money question and can't get through, head over to our website at ramsysolutions.com and use the Ask Ramsey AI tool. It's built and trained on only Ramsey data. Three, four years of this show answering questions fed into it. All the books, George and I and all the others have written fed into it. all the articles on Ramsey fed into it. And so you will get, and we're constantly putting more Ramsey data. And guess what?

There's no other trash from the internet fed into it. So it's impossible for it to answer as poorly as Reddit would. Which is what AI is actually pulling from shockingly. Yeah. Or TikTok or whatever. So if you want a Ramsey answer that has only Ramsey data in the AI tool, it's going to give you, it's going to, It's going to be almost as smart aleck as I am.

It's that good. So check it out. Ask Ramsey. It's completely free. And so if you're sitting having a conversation over the 4th of July with your relatives or something and you have an argument, let's go ask Ramsey. We'll settle it. That's your ammo right there. We'll settle it.

We'll settle the argument right here. We'll know what Ramsey would say. And you'll get the same answer George would have given or I would have given or whatever. So Ask Ramsey at Ramsey Solutions.com. If you're on podcast or YouTube, you can click the link in the description. Sarah's in Charleston, South Carolina. Hi, Sarah. What's up?

Hey, hi. How are you? Well, I'm newly married. I'm married here, and I just learned about my husband's gambling problem. And as far as I know, everything in the bank account is gone. It's in the red. And I don't know the best solution. I have intercepted the mail and seen the debt on the credit cards.

I want to say it's close to 30,000. So I don't know if filing for bankruptcy, trying to do the debt snowball or getting with the debt management program is the best solution. How old are you guys? 44. What's he gambling on? I think it's the slot machine apps and sports.

Sports, yeah. Did you say 44? Correct. Okay. And what does he make? Somewhere around $70,000. What do you make? I'm a stay-at-home mom.

We don't share finances, so I'm completely dependent on whatever he gives me. Okay. And you've been married two years, so you have a two-year-old? We do have a two-year-old, but we have only been married just over a year. Oh, I see. Okay. And we have other children not together. Okay.

So you have kids? How many of your kids do you have other than this child? I have a 19-year-old. And what were you doing for a living before you got married a year ago and became a stay-at-home mom with no access to money? I was in manufacturing. Okay. Oh, Sarah, I'm so sorry. Nowhere in this story so far have you said how repentant he is and that he's going to counseling and he's joined Gamblers Anonymous and he's turning over all the spending to you and he's giving up all rights to all money which is what an addict has to do if they want to stay married.

So far I've not heard any of that. We have discussed putting making his direct deposit go into an account with just my name. He has been in contact with somebody from our church who runs the men's meeting that is addiction-based. They haven't got together yet, but they have been in conversation. Okay. There's talk. I don't know. Yeah, there's talk.

So let me give you some harsh realities that you guys have to work through, and I hope you can work through them, all right? but I'm not an expert on addictions, but I have worked with addicts for 35 years because 100% of addicts have financial trouble. Okay. 100% of addicts also lie and manipulate. It is the nature of the beast. And so you cannot trust a thing that's being said. The only thing you can trust are the actual actions. and so he's got two and a half minutes to get plugged into the next gambler's anonymous meeting

and two and a half minutes to have the pastor at your doorstep sitting in your living room coaching the two of you on whether or not this marriage is going to survive not two and a half weeks two and a half minutes and he needs to turn over 100% of all debt and all financial advances over to you. He has zero control of anything as a starting point. Otherwise, he's a lying, manipulative addict, and you're an enabler. And your life is going to go down the toilet. There's no middle ground with this, folks. The fastest growing addiction right now in America is online porn. The second fastest growing addiction that's tearing families apart is online gambling. And sports betting has gone from $5 billion to $150 billion. And it's men 25 to 45 years old.

It's completely gutted the male portion of our population. And we think it's cute with some guy holding a balloon at Draft Kings or MGM. It's not cute. It's screwing. It's screwing. America over and you're sitting in the middle of it with a baby. So, darling, I want you to get really angrier than you are right now and tougher than you are right now for the survival of yourself and your children. And this guy has got to regain trust over the next many years that he stays completely sober from gambling sites of any kind and any other addictive behaviors because he's plugged into a good therapist, into a good church, and into Gamblers Anonymous, all three, and he has no control over anything except to work all the

time and bring you the checks. And then I think you can walk out of this with the baby steps. But if you don't do all of that exactly that way, if he hedges on anything, he's electing to exit the marriage because that's what's going to happen eventually. Eventually, you're going to get tired of this. The third time you pay off all the debts because he lies. If I had him on the phone, I would call him a liar because 100% of addicts lie. You following me here? Yes. I'm worried about you, honey.

Does he still have access to his smartphone? Because you need to get rid of that thing today and get him a dumb phone that has no apps on. All he can do is make phone calls. Phone calls and text to you saying how much I'm working. And pull his credit report. You need to pull both of your credit reports tonight. Go to annual credit report. Pull them for both of you from all three bureaus to get a full picture of what this mess is before we can begin cleaning it up.

Because if you treat this like it's a sweet little boy that made a 13-year-old mistake and he's just really sorry, you're going to be broke the rest of your life. Because this is nothing sweet about this. This is evil to its core. And you're going to have to, you guys are going to have to, he's going to have to treat it like he just. had an affair and he never sees the old girlfriend again or we're done because I don't need another girlfriend in here and that's what this gambling is it's just it's his mistress you've got to treat it that way okay are you hearing me am i said do i sound like i'm over the top to you i hope i do yeah yeah i understand why yeah because i really want you to hear this

because i've worked with these folks for years and these guys that sort of kind oh i'm just going to quit. I don't need anybody's help. I'm just going to quit. I can quit anytime I want, says every addict. Everybody's ever done cocaine. I can quit whenever I want. Right? Not a chance. Unbelievable. If you've had your phone two or three years, there's a chance it's unlocked. So bringing your own phone is a great way to unlock savings on your wireless bill. You can switch to boost mobile to get unlocked. Bring your own device and save big. See, the big wireless companies count on you staying right where you are, paying more than you should every single month.

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And that price is locked in forever. No contracts, no hidden fees. no surprises. So if you're tired of wasting money on your phone bill, this is your chance to do something about it. Go to boostmobile.com slash Ramsey. Get unlocked and keep more of your hard-earned money. That's boostmobile.com slash Ramsey. $25 forever requires customers to remain active on Boost Mobile Unlimited Plan. Joel is with us in Albuquerque. Hey, Joel, what's up? Hello, Dave. How are you today? Better than I deserve. How can I help?

Okay, we recently bought a house to fix up and flip in which we did. And we did do a real estate contractor owner finance. My question to you is this contract should, is set to go off in five years with the balloon payment. But we also have an option to actually keep that real estate contract going for the next 30 years. Am I better off getting the five year and putting it in a mutual fund? am I better off even that as is? Well, you're probably not getting 12% on it, are you? No, six and a half.

Well, then you'd be better off putting it in a mutual fund if it got 12%, right? Yeah, I see that payment coming and that... I mean, if you put it in at 12%, they'd send you a payment, dude. True. Mutual fund, you set up a mutual fund to pay you 6% and making 12. Okay. I was just always trying to do that little bucket system of I have this bucket, I have this bucket, I have this bucket. That's what my thought was. I'm sorry,

I don't know what bucket system we're talking about. So, like, I have my, so if I have a downturn in the market, I always have this. It's a constant for my retirement. Oh, I see. So you want to be diversified. That's what you're saying. You want to not have all your money in one place. Right. Just in case we have a downturn in the market or something like that. Okay. But if you're Making 6% on your money, I mean, you could put that in high-yield savings account and almost make that and be fully liquid. But on this contract, you're stuck. You have no access to the money whatsoever. So the five years is better and then get it in the brokerage account.

Yeah, I never carry back paper when I sell real estate for that reason. I don't want the money trapped at a low interest rate. Okay, okay. All right. Easy enough. Thank you, sir. appreciate the call. It's an interesting discussion. And what are your thoughts on owner financing as a general strategy? I wouldn't do it. And seller financing, would that be a different scenario? The seller financing is owner financing.

Okay. When the seller carries back the paper, that's owner financing. It's the same thing. The owner carries back the paper. And it's meaning that you pay them a payment instead of giving them money. So instead of going to the bank, I go to Dave, and Dave says, well, I'll loan you the money at six and a half percent. Yeah. And you're making six and a half percent. on your money and you should be making a lot more than that. Now, you take the risk that the bank would take because you're the lender. Yeah. Well, I mean, you have to foreclose if they don't pay. If you're going to do that, you might as well just have a renter.

At least you can get them out. You don't have to go through a foreclosure. I mean, you can make more than 6.5% renting it, cash on cash, right? And so I can take the exact same house, put a renter in it, make more money and have, you know, and not have to do a foreclosure. I can just do an eviction. And the money's not locked up. Exactly.

Exactly. So no, I can't think of an in this interest rate environment where, you know, where your S&P 500 is averaging upward of 12%, then I don't, 10% plus to 12, whatever in there. I'm not thinking why I would carry back paper at 6. It doesn't make any sense to me at all. No, I would not do that. And here's the thing. you have all of your money invested in a single individual consumer, not a company.

That's even riskier. Meaning that little Joe and Susie over here, we bet the whole deal on their ability to keep a job. Yeesh. And I'm only making 6% on that? That's a lot of risk for 6%. So, no, I'm, I'll pass on that one. Thomas is in Canada. Hi, Thomas.

How are you? I'm well, sir, how are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I recently just got a brand new job and went up in income, and my girlfriend has just recently gotten a job close to where we live as well. I really love this moment quite a lot. Sorry, I'm a little nervous. That's okay, good for you.

And we're looking to propose to her by next year. And I currently have $207,000 left on my mortgage, soon to be our mortgage. And then I also have $2,000 in consumer credit card debt, and I'm wanting to pay that off. Long story short, my question is, how much money should I be saving when paying off a pretty minimal amount of credit card debt? Just want your opinion on that. What do you make now? It's your new job. I make, so I've just, this is my, I think my second month in with my new role.

I currently make, I would sit on track, about $82,000. Good for you. Good for you. So you'll pay this credit card debt off with the next paycheck. Yeah, yes, I'm trying to. Then there would be no need to worry about saving money, just buy the credit card off. Focus on that. That's right.

You're talking about saving for a ring? Yeah, I'm saying, yes, sir, I'm saying for a ring. Yeah, I'd like to get, I know you folks at Ramsey have sort of preached, I think, I think a month's worth of salary. Yeah, is that what you're going to do? I mean, this girl rocks my world, Dave, so I'm trying to do more, but, you know, she means a lot to me, and she makes me feel really special. And, you know, I've been through a lot of junk in my life. And she's made me. That sweet, the ring has nothing to do with that.

Yeah, fair enough. Yeah, I know. If she's going, hey, was this two or three months of salary? I'd like to know. Then you marry the wrong woman. Yeah. And there's no correlation between the size of the diamond and the probability of the marriage lasting. Fair enough.

Zero. All the other stuff, there's correlation between all the times you told me how great this girl is in the last five minutes. There's a correlation between that and your marriage lasting. If you keep doing that over and over for 44 years, you'll be sitting where I am. So, yeah. And by the way, during that time, you can replace and upgrade these diamonds. I mean, Sharon's got one the size of a headlight now, but it started out with a little chip. A little tiny little sparkle chip, not even.

Point two, three carrots. This is not even a, you can't even see the orange on the carrot. It's so small. I mean, this is a tiny, it's in the safe because we don't want it to be lost because it's so small. And so that's, that was the engagement ring 40. four years ago. So, you know, I think one month is going to be awesomeness, and I want you to, I want you to study diamonds a little bit because they're absolutely useless as an investment. But they're a great thing to give us a gift to your wife.

That's great. Thank you. But don't believe all this crap that they go up in value. I've been buying them for 40 years. None of them have ever gone up in value. Sounds good. We've got a bunch of them. We've got a bunch of them. But none of them went up in value. They're just all SWI. Sharon wants it. That was that simple. And so that's what you're going to do. But yeah, start out with a one month and you can upgrade later.

And then you guys start stacking cash. And don't wait on next year to propose, honey. It's freaking June. Painter get off the ladder. And it won't take you long. If you can pay off two grand credit card debt. How long y'all been dating? We've been dating for approximately a year and a half.

Oh, yeah, you're perfect. Have it, brother. Let's get engaged. Let's get this done. done. Yeah, for sure. I got one more question. So we want to, we're fully aligned financially, or about 90%, I would say. We're looking to put finances together. What's sort of the best avenue to go about that? I want to have like one checking account. Not until you're married. Not until we're married. No, no, no. We haven't done that yet. Oh, okay. This is when it was after.

Okay. It's pretty simple. You get one checking account. Got it. What I did was just, she closed hers down, and then I added her, her to mine and made it a joint. It was that simple. It just went down to the bank and did that. Okay. So one joint checking, you can have a high-yield savings account for your emergency fund and other savings goals. You can check out fairwins.org slash Ramsey to get their smart bundle, which has all that. And from that point, from that point that there's a ring on the finger and we're married forward, everybody's name is on everything. Paychecks all flow into that one checking account. Until you reach the point that I did a couple of years ago where my name is now on nothing.

Dave owns nothing. Well, apparently, some people. People's hobby is to sue Dave Ramsey. So Dave's a pauper. He doesn't own anything. Sure it owns it all. It's awesome. And good luck with Sue and her. What an M-night Shyamalan twist for that poor person who goes, I'm going after Dave.

He's penniless. He's broke. You'll be okay, Dave. I'm here for you. George, you'll sign me a check, won't you? I'll spare you five bucks if you need to go down to the store. You'll spot me a ride in a Tesla. You wouldn't dare.

I'll give you a ride down to the market. it, Dave. That's a liability. So you can catch on fire. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fair Winds Credit Union Studio. Ariana is with us in Salt Lake City. Hi, Ariana. How are you? Hi, I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up?

So me and my husband have been working on the babysit. We've been budgeting pretty much our whole marriage. And we're finally at the point where we're like trying to build up our emergency fund. We're debt-free. And I am just looking at our budget and looking for, like, anything we can do to be saving more and to build up our emergency fund as, like, fast as possible.

And in looking at it, I, the only thing that I can see that, like, we can move around is our rent and just how much it is. So we bring in probably about 3,500 to 4,000 a month, and our rent is 1950 right now. Wow. And you've been able to pull off all this while paying 50% of your income and rent? Yes. And I mean, we still have a margin of about 300 that we're paying towards our emergency fund every month. But obviously, we're wanting to have more than a few thousand in our emergency fund.

in hopefully the next three years. And so 300 is just not going to cut it. And so we're in a community right now. I'm a stay-at-home mom, and we also only have one car. That's probably another reason why we've been able to pull it off. But because we only have one car, obviously my husband takes that to work, and I can sometimes use it, but I have a really good community of other moms here in our neighborhood that are all within, like, walking distance.

And so I guess I'm just trying to decide. We're trying to decide if giving up that, like, because obviously my husband will be fine if we move, but giving up that, like, for me and for my sanity and even for my daughter, like, leaving her friends and things like that, if that is worth it to be able to build our emergency savings faster. Well, here's the problem. You do not have any disposable income. That's what economists call it. You don't have any margin much to be able to build your life.

Yeah. And because you're paying, and the worst part is it's not even a house payment, you're giving you away and rent. That's true. It's a great point. Think about saving a down payment. It would take you guys decades at this point with just a couple hundred bucks to spare. For sure.

And to give some context in the next, so my husband's also in school right now. And so once he's done with school, we'll be making a little bit. more. And then we also plan to get into, we want to own a Chick-fil-A. That's what my husband does. He manages a Chick-Fillet right now. And we want to franchise and own one. And so our goal would be to get in a program where we would be making about 10,000 more than we're making now, but we wouldn't be charged any, like, travel fees or rent because they would be just basically sending us all over the country. And so obviously we know that this isn't sustainable for the rest of our life, but for the next three years, it's like, okay, like, we're going to be.

going to be able to save a lot. What's he in school for? A business. Well, he doesn't have to have a business degree to do a Chick-fil-A deal. You don't have to have a business degree. You do. It just gets you ahead to have a bachelor's degree. And we just have decided that a business degree is going to be not necessarily helpful in getting one, but being helpful in, like, running a good and quality. I'll go along with that. I'll go along with that. Yeah. Okay. So the question you ask yourself is, is renting here now with this amount of money in this situation going to take me where I want to be 10 years from now?

And all the things that you described from me were out there in the future and none of them had to do with you being in that house. Yeah, for sure. So I want you to go have that future that you clearly outlined, the goals you set, the vision that you two have, that includes owning a home. And if you need to purchase a $2,000 car and come back and visit the old neighborhood for a while, I would do that before I would stay there paying $2,000 a month. Really? Okay. And, you know, to visit your children and your children's friends and your friends that you've made in the neighborhood,

that would be fine. But you've been able to build community there. You will be able to build community wherever you go because that's who you are. It's not a function of the location. And it doesn't sound like his income is going to double in the next year or two. No, it's not. Which is the only way to make this rent sustainable. It's just not sustainable.

It's not going to take you where you want to go. Instead, it's holding you back from where you want to go, which is why you called and why you wanted us to say what you were thinking out loud. She needed the confirmation. Sometimes that's what we do. Sometimes that's what we do. Anthony's in Orange County. Hey, Anthony, what's up?

How are you doing, Dave? Thank you for taking my call. Sure. How can we help? I just have a quick question. So my wife, unfortunately, was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2023. Lucky, you know she's a surgery.

Everything was successful, but she is considered as a disability now, and she's not able to work. last year I didn't know that she had a 401k it's kind of like a 401k but I forgot the name of it but we found out that she has $100,000 in that

401K so we have no debt now thanks to you I follow your steps I was able to clear up all my debt I just recently paid off $15,000 debt clear and I have about $10,000 saving my M.A savings account Good for you. Well done.

We were thinking of taking that money out and we're able to take it out penalty free. The company told us due to her disability. But not tax-free. Well, not tax-free, correct. But the fee for taking it out early, it will be weighed. What do you make?

I make about 140 to $150,000 a year. So you're going to lose $30,000 of this $100,000 in taxes then? Correct. Yes, that is correct. And we were thinking of putting some of that money I was thinking about taking it out in a year because I still have a one-year lease in my apartment and we were thinking about putting a down payment

for a home since we're debt-free. And Dave, I want to borrow money at 30% interest for a down payment on my new house. I see what you're saying. Probably not. So what can I do with that money then if I save money for a few more years to put a thousand money to a home?

I would roll it to a Roth IRA. or roll it to a traditional IRA and later to a Roth IRA in some good growth stock mutual funds and let it grow. Is she permanently disabled? Yes, she was considered permanently disabled. I mean, that's not the question I'm asking. I'm sorry. Do you believe that she is going to be disabled for the rest of her life? I'm hoping no.

By what I'm looking at, she's progressing and doing a lot better, so I'm hoping, no. Okay. what I was hoping to. Okay. And so what I, what I want is I don't want to destroy the retirement nest egg that she's built. That'll double every seven years if you just leave it alone. Yeah. And, um, and, and, and especially with the struggles medically that she's had, I want to be sure that money is there. And so, no, I'm going to, you guys have done a really good job, Anthony, and I want you to keep doing it. Leave this money alone. Finish your emergency fund and now start saving for your down payment. You make good money. You're making better and better money as you

along. She's healing and going to head towards making better money, we hope. And so, you know, you've got a real good five-year vision right here, but don't, don't borrow money at 30% interest to do this. Dave Ramsey here for more than 30 years, I've been talking to folks on the air, and I can tell you that most people are broke, not because they don't make enough money, but because they don't have a plan. You need to give every dollar you earn a job, because when you do that, something changes. You stop guessing. You stop worrying. You stop stressing. Our every dollar budgeting app will show you how to find extra cash, pay off debt, and finally start winning with money. But most people won't do it. They'll keep living paycheck to paycheck. Keep hoping things will change without making a change. It's time to say enough is enough. It's time to take control of your money. It's time to start your every dollar budget for free today. Go download it in the app store. or Google Play.

If your private student loans are in default, well, when you've fallen behind so far that the loans considered unpaid, well, Y-R-R-R-E-FI might be able to help. Why-R-R-F-I-H-R-E-F-I-M-TUATIONs, explore low, fixed-rate refinancing options that fit their budget. Go to Y-R-R-R-E-F-Y.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter why, R-E-F-Y dot com slash Ramsey, might not be in all states.

Today's question comes from Spencer in Arizona. I moved in with my fiancé over two years ago. I've paid for all of our groceries, gym memberships, and household items in addition to all my personal expenses. Also, I added him to my medical benefits for a year and a half and never asked him to reimburse me for that. He covers our rent and utilities. We are now discussing marriage, but he never clearly communicated his financial expectations before I moved in and his expectations keep changing. How do I objectively determine whether this is a healthy financial partnership before getting married? Easy. It's not. It is not a healthy financial partnership. I solved it. It's called a moving target. This is so disjointed from the start. Moving in with somebody you're not married to. I'm going to pay over here, but then I'm going to just cover this. I added him to my benefits over here. Never asked him for reimbursement. It sounds like I'm like I'm going to HR here. This does not sound like love to me. Nothing says love. Like, I need a reimbursement for my purchases. Oh, gosh. Yeah. I mean, our stance is pretty simple. Combine your whole life. Well, that's only when you're married. Once you're married. Not when you're shacking up. The problem is you're trying to act like you're married and you're not. And that's what you get yourself into. It's almost impossible mathematically and relationally to pull off what you're trying to pull off. And so resentment will build on one side long term. Yeah, just if you keep in mind, just because you sleep with them, they're still a roommate.

Okay, just treat it. You know, you just have to, it's a roommate. So you have to decide who's buying the mustard. When you have a roommate in college, you know, we have to, who's, who's mustard is that in the refrigerator? When you each buy your own and label it. Did you drink my beer? You know, that's what you do in roommate college, right? When you're in college, you're like, where did my stuff go?

Oh, you ate my stuff because it's my stuff because you're my roommate. it's not your stuff. It's not our stuff. And so that's not our stuff. And so that's what you're doing. And people want to play married, but not be married. And it doesn't work. And the data is now in.

10 years later, you're in really bad financial shape when you do this. So the numbers are horrendous on what happens to people that are not married and play marriage 15 years later. Financially. They don't build. wealth because they're fighting over who bought the mustard. Yeah. And do I want to reimbursed?

Well, and this thing reeks of codependency, enabling, resentment. Nothing about this sounds fun. So I would do a reset of this entire relationship if it's even going to work out long term. Yeah, I think we need to start fresh and sit down and see a marriage counselor and say, all right, if we were married, we would be combining 100% of everything and there wouldn't be a mine and a yours and an hour's. There would only just be hours. Much simpler. And then how is that going to feel and how is that going to sound? And do you want to sign up for that? And oh, by the way, when it's ours, here's what we are going to do. We are going to be on a budget every month that we are both have a

vote on and we're both going to agree to and we are both going to stick to it. Oh, and we are going to live on less than we make. And we are not going into debt. And we are going to have an emergency fund savings. And we are going to be saving towards a house. And we are going to be investing in retirement. And if we aren't doing that, there isn't going to be a we. That's a healthy financial partnership right there. Get aligned. Get aligned on this stuff. The number one cause of divorce and money fights in North America is money problems and not being aligned.

And so if, listen, if you're 16 or you got a 16 year old or 18 year old, have them to start studying marriage statistics a little bit. You know, statistically what makes a wonderful spouse. if the number one thing that causes marriages to end is money problems, then we should solve for that. Avoid those. Like on the second date, like, you know, oh, you're on dits and you're going to spend money like you're in Congress. Okay, you're out, you know.

You should solve for that, you know? And if you think your mother's going to live with us, we should solve for that. And if we're going to raise children and the children are going to be in charge of the house and the adults are not going to be, the inmates are going to run. run the asylum, then we should solve for that in the interim period prior to marriage. Because these are the, you know, and, you know, I worship trees and you worship Jesus. We should solve for that. What are the four things you mentioned that causes successful marriage? That's it. Religion, in-laws, kids, and money. That's it. And all the data says if you're aligned on those four things prior to

marriage, you have a very high probability of your marriage being successful. But very few people that have different religions, and they both deeply believe in them, make it. And there are a few people who are, you know, I don't believe that our children ought to have anything. They should be able to tell us what to do. And then you're not going to, that, you know, we're going to wrong, wrong person, got the wrong one here. It's been a wrong, long life. Smart aleck kids. Yeah. You mentioned that if they graduate high school and get married before they move in together, there's also data on that as well. Yeah. This is, There's the studies laying right here.

So this has been studied by like six different pieces of research. It's called the success sequence. If you do this in this order, the numbers are amazing. First, before you do anything else, you graduate from high school. Then you get a full-time job. And only then do you get married. And only then do you have kids? And only then do you move in together?

If you do it in that order, 97% of millennials who completed those three steps in order, the success sequence, achieved middle income or higher by their mid-30s and only 3% are in poverty. Wow. So 97% of millennials that are in poverty didn't do the success sequence in order. And it was a pretty simple, it was a pretty low bar. You know, don't have babies before you get married. don't get married before you graduate from high school and have a full-time job. 97% chance of financial success. We're not asking you get a graduate degree.

High school before you make babies. And you've got a 97% probability. And stack that with your four pieces over here with the religion, in-laws, kids, money. Now you've got marital success and financial success. And 80% of the millionaires that we interviewed are, are married. Interesting. So it's going to be better to build wealth together. Only 62% of the public is married. Interesting. So marriage increases your chances of becoming wealthy. Ding ding, ding. Correlation causation. We can argue the point in the research, but the research is there. We know the

data. The data is actually there. And of those 80% that are married, 84% say that a quality alignment with their spouse is why we were able to become millionaires. Not we didn't argue, but we had alignment on the big stuff. Not we didn't disagree about whether to buy that car. That's not what we're talking about. We are talking about we're not borrowing money. We are talking about we're going to be generous. We're going to give to our church.

We are talking about we are going to do these things and we both believe that and we both are putting that in the budget and we both agree to that. And when you line all that up, folks, in America today, you can become wealthy. I mean, it really, it's, it's, the biggest thing holds people back is they just do stupid stuff. Do it in the wrong order. The wrong time. And it's like, and then go, I don't know why can't. I want to be reimbursed for my medical benefits.

Because you got it out of order, you know. The old marriage vows used to say in sickness and in health, for rich or for poor, and. unto thee all my worldly goods I pledge. I'm all in, baby. I'm all in. You're all in. We're all in. As Deloney says, right or die.

Here we go. All in. Not like, I think we had to play house and see who buys the mustard. You should not feel uncertain about investing, and you don't have to. That's why we created investing essentials, a two-night virtual event where George Camel and I walk you through my playbook for investing and wealth planning. We'll simplify everything from 401Ks and mutual funds to passing on wealth so you can invest with confidence. Tickets start at $199. Get yours today at ramsysolutions.com slash events or click the link in the showman.

notes. The right insurance acts as a shield as a defense while your offenses you're investing. If disaster strikes your wallet needs protection, our free insurance coverage checkup helps you figure out if you have the right coverage, if you're getting ripped off, and gives you a personalized action plan with clear next steps to get the right coverage in place and the wrong coverage gone. Go to Ramsey Solutions.com slash checkup and take the free coverage checkup. Sean's in 10,000. Kalahassee. Hi, Sean. How are you? Good. How are y'all doing today?

Better than we deserve. What's up? I need some help about how to talk to my dad about not taking out a helo on our family property. Who's our family property? His house? It would be me. No, my wife and I live in a house on a pine tree farm outside Tallahassee. And my brother and his wife actually live at the back end. and my dad, he lives in Atlanta, but he's having, I guess, some cash flow problems with his construction company. And he called me the other day asking if I would sign a document so he could take out a helock against the property. And I've listened to the show long enough.

I know that's a bad idea. Okay, I'm sorry. Who owns the property? Well, it's actually all of us. It's a trust. So we're all on the deed. My brother, my dad, myself, and my mom. I see.

Okay, and who put it into the trust? My dad, he bought the property outright six years ago, kind of as an engagement present for my wife and I, and then my brother and his wife moved out about two years ago. I'm sorry, how does that figure into your engagement? engagement gift? He just, they just wanted to help us get a head start, not have a payment or anything. No, no, no, no.

No, no. How does your brother coming into your engagement gift work? Oh, no, I was just feeling, you know, filling in why he's out here. But that doesn't really matter. No, it does matter. I'm trying to figure out what's your brother. Is this, was the intent to give you this piece of property, then how did your brother get into it?

The intent was to, yes, I guess, give us the property. And then it's a 20-acre pine farm, so he's just building a house at the other end instead of buying a new house or something, you know, moving in somewhere else. Y'all have really blurred lines about who owns what and why in your family. So your dad gave you an engagement gift of a 20-acre pine farm. but he put it in your brother's name along with his own name, so it didn't really give it to you. And then your brother moves on to the property that you were given as an engagement gift. Am I understanding this right?

Yeah. And now he wants to take out a he lock on it, because now he's got trouble financially. Yes. So what is the land worth? Last I looked about 230,000. Mm-hmm. Okay. And are you farming the tree farm on it? Yeah, we're taking care of the pines. It's just a pine tree farm.

Just a... What do you do for a living? I'm a general contractor down here in Florida. Like he is back in Atlanta. So you make a living apart from this piece of property? Yes, sir. Okay. All right. Um, well, the thing that I'm struggling with and giving you a straight answer on your, and the reason I keep asking all these questions to get clarity is I'm trying to figure out what to tell you to do, uh, because obviously, no, I'm going to tell you to not sign the he lock. Okay. And if you don't sign it, there is no he lock.

Yes, sir. But your dad is confused about who owns the property or you are. because actually the three of you own it together, but it was given to you as a gift, but not really. It's so confusing. You follow me? Yes, sir. Yep. So my point is that this is, this is,

what's going to happen 20 years from now when you all sell it? Or 10 years from now when you sell it? Or 10 days from now when you sell it? Is it going to be three ways? Your property you were given as an engagement, but three ways? We did discuss that briefly a while back, and essentially he would just get back to his initial investment, and then my wife and I would get any profit.

And what about your brother? Well, he would just get the acres that his house is on in the back. Oh, so you platted that off? It's no longer part of the deal? Yes, yeah. It's actually been platted off and deeded to your brother? No. is your brother still on the stinking trust.

There's a lot of hesitation here. Yeah. You're making this up as you're telling me, just like your dad does. So, no, this is not working, dude. This is going to end poorly is where I'm going. It was conceived poorly, and it's going to end poorly. And this simple question of whether to take out a helock on this is exposing how badly this deal was done. Because none of you know what's happening here.

Well, my brother, well, my dad, yeah, it's all over the place. And so what I would say, if I'm used, I want clarity out of all of this. And clarity is going to involve written details as to what happens to this land and who has power over it and so forth. So I have given my children gifts. My name is no longer on them when I give them the gift. Thus, it is called a gift. Your dad is confused about that. And Dave, the heloc to help the struggling business feels like a slippery slope of...

Oh, it's going to go down, and then they're going to lose both things. Because it's not really solving a problem. In the contracting business, welcome to a business that goes broke fairly often. While putting his family at risk. Exactly. Because that he lock is, I mean, if he can't pay. But his dad put up all the money for the tree farm to start with. So, and he kept his name on it.

So it kind of feels like he still owns it because he kind of still does. because he kind of didn't really give it as a gift when he was engaged. He kind of kept his name on it. Not kind of. He did. And then he put his brother's name on it so he could have the back 40 dollars, back 40 feet or whatever's in the back corner. Would it be astute to go, hey, if he had the money to pay his dad for his portion to just buy him out of his quote-unquote investment portion, make this cleaner, give him the money to be done with this. Okay, Sean has his own career as a contractor and his brother has this.

This is going to end poorly. So what would I do in this situation now that I've put all my sarcasm into this pot and stirred it here? I would suggest to dad and brother that we sell this property and we divvy it up now. And dad can use that for his cash flow problems and I'll take my portion of it as my engagement and brother can have his portion as the back corner, or we'll actually go do the plat now and give the brother the back corner,

and dad and I'll split the difference after dad gets his money back or whatever the deal is. But dad needs his money, and this is a messed up deal that's going to go sideways. It solves multiple problems. It's going to end up in relationship problems because it was never done properly from day one. And so if I were in your shoes,

I would suggest dad, he like, why don't we just sell it? And you get your money out. I'll get my money out. And, you know, we'll be clean then. Because this is not going to go well. And, Sean, you may go, you may be used to this because you grew up with it, but your wife is going to end up so pissed at her father-in-law before this is over.

And it's not going to be good for your family. So, yeah, I think I would just sell it and get my money out. Everybody get their money out and everybody be happy and. Go other separate ways. Untangle this. When we are. When we are tangled, we are tangled. And I don't think, I'm just, I'm 100% sure, Dad's not going to be okay.

When Sean bows up and says, no, Heelock, we're going to have, he's going to hear Dad voice on the phone. I'm going to be using my dad voice, not my partner in a trust voice. Hey, George Camel here. We often talk about how being normal sucks when it comes to your money. But guess what? Normal isn't so great when it comes to your job either. Normal is staying in a job you hate, dreading Mondays, and working for people you don't even like.

Sound familiar? Well, the good news is you can break free from normal because Ramsey Solutions is hiring, and we refuse to settle for the ordinary. In fact, we are anything but normal and we are proud of it. And right now we're hiring for technology, sales, marketing, writing, copy editing, and creative roles. So head over to ramsysolutions.com slash careers and apply today. Our scripture today is Psalm 8411, for the Lord God is a son and shield. The Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless. Jordan Peterson said the more you open yourself up to the possibility that good things will happen, the higher probability is that good things will in fact happen. Taylor's

with us in Dallas. Hi, Taylor. How are you? Good, George, good Dave. How are you guys doing? Better than we deserve. What's up? So, uh, I'm recently engaged. and before getting married, I feel like it's important to rid myself of about $36,000, $372 in debt. The biggest chunk of that is going to be my truck, which I've decided to sell. I owe $30,160. dollars. And so in trying to sell, I'm trying to sell it privately. I have about $15,000 worth of equity in it.

And just not getting any traction or interest in private sale. Most of what I'm getting is scammers or what I've learned to be scammers for a mask Ramsey. So I appreciate that tool. but dealerships as well, and they're only offering about 80 to 85% of the private value in the vehicle. So the private value, you think, is 45? Yes. Based on what?

Yes, sir. Kelly Blue Book. Okay, so that's private sale with your attributes of your truck in Kelly Blue Book is a $45,000 number. Yes, sir. And how old are you? Diesel truck. 35. And it's what kind of truck again?

The 2019 RAM, 2,500. Diesel. Yes, sir. In Texas. Is it Dooley? No. Okay. And it's what year model again? 19.

Okay. Do you just have it listed on Facebook, or is it other places as well? Auto trader Cars.com Facebook Marketplace and chat What's the other private one? I'm sorry. Well, there's a whole bunch.

True car car gurus. Craigslist. Okay. Are you getting any views on it? Are you getting views but no messages? Are you getting messages but they're scams? What's the situation there? A lot of

A lot of views that turn into messages who are, they're definitely scammers offering more for the vehicles. And I'm asking for it and then saying that they'll, they need it shipped. They'll give me a check. And that's where it gets sketchy? Yes, sir. And then dealerships, I guess dealerships, and I didn't think of this, but they scoured the private sale market. looking for vehicles in good shape with low mileage. Exactly.

So what the dealers are offering you what? About 37. Yeah, okay. It's the best offer I've gotten. Have you tried like a CarMax or Carvana to see what they would give you? Sometimes it'll be higher than dealerships. Yeah, CarMax is about the same. I have not tried Carvana.

Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. have you looked at on all of these sites what your competition is? Like who else has got a 2019 Dodge Diesel up for sale? What are they asking? Yes. Most of them are lower than me, but they have higher mileage and different trim levels. If I'm going apples to apples, I'm right in that range.

And dealerships are, if I'm not looking at private sale, dealerships are selling for 40s. to 48 for the same vehicle. How long have you headed on the market? I probably can't lower. About three weeks. Okay. All right. It's probably just going to take some time to locate the buyer.

Okay. Everything you're saying sounds right. You've done a very, very good job of analyzing the situation. Congratulations. I mean, you've looked at the competition, you've looked at wholesale offers, you've weeded out the scammers, you've got it listed on multiple platforms. If you can find any other platforms to put it on, it wouldn't hurt. But if you got a serious buyer that would call up and say, you know, I'll give you 42,

then you're probably going to take that. Absolutely. But at this point, you're not after three weeks ready to sell the thing for wholesale at 37, 38. I wouldn't do that. I don't disagree with you. There's no desperation in this. We're not trying to avoid a repo. We're simply trying to get rid of the $30,000 worth of debt,

but we're not going to give up an extra $8,000. to do that. So I'm with you. I think you've got this dialed in. I don't think it's, I don't think, the reason I'm asking all the question is trying to see if you're overpriced, but it does not appear you are based on what you told me. Now, the thing we have to all admit is a $45,000 car is still a very expensive car. So there's not a lot of people walking around just looking for that today. Exactly. So it's not a, you know, if it was a $15,000 car, there'd be a lot of more market for it, right? At that point, you're competing with people who would just buy new.

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So are you in Dallas proper or are you out further? No, I'm out further. I'm in White'sboro. I'm wondering if you called dealers that are closer to the city who may move more of those if you might have better luck with an offer. I mean, you could keep poking around.

I don't think you're going to, I don't think you're going to give you much over wholesale. But Georgia's, it won't hurt to do what George is saying. At least you'll find your floor by getting offered. Every dealership that's good. Okay. So that's all ready. Yeah, everything you're saying is right. It may just be a matter of patience.

And if you run out of patience, you're just going to have to cut your price down, approaching wholesale to get the deal to work, right, to get somebody to move on it. And I just played that game selling my car and we listed it higher and then we kind of incrementally brought it down every couple weeks until it sold. So that's kind of the game in the private party used car market. But that car was a lot less expensive. Oh, yeah. It was like an, you know, $8,000 or $10,000 car, which there's more people in the market for that than the $45,000 diesel truck. Yeah.

Okay. Hmm. Yeah, Taylor, I didn't hear anything that you told me that was like way out there. All of it sounded accurate. And so the only thing I've got to say is it may take a little while because it's an expensive car. It's a $45,000 car. And the good news is you're not trying to sell a diesel. truck in Manhattan. You're trying to sell it in Dallas, Fort Worth, which would be a much better

marketplace for it. So that, you know, or L.A. You're in the sweet spot for selling a truck. So I think that's good. And I think it's going to take a little time. And then you just decide how motivated you are going to become, or am I going to just reach over and pay the stupid thing off and keep it, you know, at some point. We didn't ever ask how much you made. We didn't get into all of that. but that's that's the whole process so george um it's pretty cool that guy had a wake up call you said i got engaged i'm gonna clean up everything i'm gonna get my debts cleaned up he had an i've had it moment i'm sick and tired of being sick and tired and it was around his car you know i've been doing this for almost 40 years now on the radio here answer and on podcasts and youtube once they came

along not for 40 years but once they came along um and it's persists that the number one thing that we all buy that goes down in value is a car. And the number one largest item that messes up people's finances is a car. And so, I mean, this is a young guy, he's engaged, he's excited about getting married, and he owes $30,000 on a pickup truck. I mean, just let that set in for a second, America. And so these are the decisions that people are making all across America. And so let this call be a warning to you that if you're 24, you're 23, 22, and you're thinking, oh, I might meet someone in the next few years or months and, oh, there might be a truck standing between me and her.

Then don't buy the truck, honey. Your priorities will be revealed pretty quickly if you're not willing to give up that truck for a better life with that girl. Well, just never buy it in the first place. I mean, average new car is now 50 grand, average payment, 768. It's gotten to be insane. So just avoid those. That puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it.

In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace. Christ Jesus.